Since the advent of the wheel, mobility has permeated most aspects of life. From the animal drawn buggies and carts of yesteryear, to today's most sophisticated transportation vehicles, literally hundreds of millions of people have come to depend on mobility in their everyday lives. Mobility, for example, provides faster, more efficient modes of operation, thus creating more productive work related activities and more enjoyable recreational activities.
While the wheel remains as one of the most widely used mechanisms to facilitate today's transportation means, other transportation facilitation mechanisms, such as aerodynamic lift and jet propulsion, have also emerged. Generally speaking, all modes of transportation are derived from a need to transport payload from one point to another. The payload to be transported may represent animate objects, such as human beings, or inanimate objects, such as electronic equipment, volatile/explosive materials, etc.
In most instances, therefore, it is advantageous to reduce the amount of kinetic energy that is transferred to the payload, no matter what the payload may be. Substantial elimination of the transfer of road vibration to passengers in a motor vehicle, for example, may serve to minimize discomfort, such as back pain, that may be caused by the road vibration. Furthermore, such a reduction may also serve to increase the passengers' endurance during long road trips, while preserving energy once the destination has been reached.
Transportation of electronic components also presents challenges, since in many instances, the electronic components are required to be operational during transportation. As such, degraded performance, including complete malfunction, may be the unintended consequence of operating electronic components in the mobile environment, since due to the kinetic energy transfer, the electronic components may be subject to a reduced operational life.
Reduction in the amount of kinetic energy that is transferred to the vibration sensitive payloads during transport remains as a high priority design criteria for virtually every mode of transportation. Current kinetic energy absorption solutions, however, tend to be largely ineffective, due in part to the inadequate level of shock absorption provided. Other kinetic energy absorption solutions may only offer a static level of kinetic energy absorption and are, therefore, incapable of adapting shock absorption to a changing environment.
In a mobile environment, however, a substantial portion of the acceleration forces exerted on the payload are time varying acceleration forces, which renders the static kinetic energy absorption solutions largely ineffective. Efforts continue, therefore, to enhance shock absorption performance for virtually any payload for virtually all types of mobile and non-mobile environments.